JAGATSINGHPUR: The Yadav community in the district is distraught over false assurances and unfulfilled promises of their elected representatives. Jagatsinghpur has a sizeable population of the community which is mainly into the dairy business. They sell their produce to several milk producers and procurement agencies like State Government’s Omfed and private firms like Pragati and Milky Moo. However, their demand for increasing the price of milk remains unheeded. Omfed procures milk from the farmers through its chilling centre at Tirtol which has a capacity of 50,000 litre per day. Besides, 25,000 litres of milk is collected from another such facility at Balikuda.
Besides, private milk producers collect nearly 75,000 litre of milk from the farmers. Sulachana Dei of Raghunathpur said there has been a decline in grazing land in urban areas due to which rearing milch cows has become an expensive affair. Iswar Charan Das of the community said while a litre of bottled water is sold at `20-24, a milk farmer gets a meagre `22-28 per litre of milk. “The price of animal feed has gone up to `20 a kg but nothing has been done to hike the price of milk. We have been demanding to increase the MSP per litre of milk to `30-32,” he said.
Das alleged firms procure milk from the farmers in the district by paying a pittance and make huge profits by selling it at a premium to customers. “Even as Jagatsinghpur district records highest milk production in the State, its dairy farmers are forced to resort to distress sale,” he said. Yadav community leader Bira Kishore Parida said, “We had urged the State Government to appoint someone from the Yadav community as the chairman of Omfed but no steps have yet been taken in this regard.”
He said Union Minister Ramkrilpa Yadav had visited the district in February 2017 during panchayat elections.He had been to Raghunathpur, Tirtol, Kujang and Erasama blocks where he sought the support of the Yadav community. Even as the community kept its promise and voted in favour of BJP, none of its demands was fulfilled, said Parida.